


Three Times Mihashi Didn't Sleep In His Parents' Bed, and One Time He Did

by emmykay



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Family, Gen, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 01:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3509807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmykay/pseuds/emmykay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompt from Zetsubooty: "Mihashi used to sleep in his parent's bed when he was little.  after he moves back home, they wake up w/him asleep at the foot of the bed. lay some saccharine goodness on me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Mihashi Didn't Sleep In His Parents' Bed, and One Time He Did

When Ren was a baby, he was a terrible sleeper. 

In a kind of self-defense, Rei resorted to joking that Ren would sleep anywhere and everywhere but in a bed. Even when they got Ren to sleep, it was always on one of their shoulders, drooling, while they were standing up drowsy, or sitting upright against a wall or a chair, sliding into sleep. Ren would stay sleeping until the very moment they began to ease into bed. 

It wasn't a medical condition, not that the doctors could find. 

Ren just didn't like sleeping. 

It wasn't even his bed. While his own little bed might be sleep kryptonite, their bed was not any better. No matter how they tried to ease onto the padded, beckoning surface, Ren would twitch awake the moment he was settled into any kind of horizontal position and begin to bawl.

Sleepy, their conversations verging on crabby, Rei and Naoe agreed that someday, Ren would sleep on a bed and be glad of it. 

Just, that day wasn't this day.

Still, they agreed, in softer tones, their son was beautiful. Especially when he was sleeping.

* * *

When the Mihashi family moved into their new house, Ren was very excited. It was a new house! With his very own bedroom! With a bed, and not a futon! 

In their old apartment, Ren had shared a room with his parents, sleeping on his own futon. Sometimes, when he awoke, he would hear the soft conversations they might be having, or just listen to their breathing. Comforted, he would turn over and go back to sleep.

But this was their new house! Things would be different! And New!

He was happy to roam the new big house, poking his nose into closets and cabinets, wondering what of their old things went where, running about the big backyard and dreaming about who he might play with here. He was excited. 

For the first day. 

Then it got dark.

He took his bath, put on his pajamas and then was placed in his very own bedroom, on that new high bed. The lights went off. 

In this new house, there were new noises. Light coming in new ways from the different position of the window. The blanket, while the same as the one he had always slept with, somehow felt different on the new bed.

The branches of the tree outside skittered across the window. Ren leaped off the new bed he had been so proud of, yanked open his door and pelted down the hall to his parents' new bedroom. But he couldn't open the door with all the boxes in the way. He waited, listening to the sound of his parents' voices coming up the stairs, the little shuffling sounds they made on the bare floor. He slid down against the wall next to the door, closing his suddenly tired eyes with a yawn.

In the morning, he woke up in the new bed, disoriented. When he came down the stairs, rubbing his eyes, his mother had laid out breakfast already. 

She said she hoped he had slept better after he had been put back in his bed, after Daddy had found him huddled, asleep, at the door of their new bedroom.

* * *

The summer brought massive thunderstorms. At the first crack of thunder, Ren hid his head under his light blanket. After the second, Ren let out a wail.

He heard something else; footsteps, lightening of the dark at the door through the fabric of the blanket, the silhouette of his father.

"Daddy!" he cried.

"Ren, are you okay? Why are you crying?"

Lightning lit up the room, followed by a sharp snap of thunder. 

Reni shook too hard to say anything. He clamped a tight hold onto his father's arm.

"You scared?"

Ren nodded, he tried to open his mouth, but only a faint wail dribbled out.

"It's okay, Ren, it's just the weather," his father soothed. 

"No- no - "

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh." Ren nodded his head so hard, his hair flew. Ren scrabbled to curl up against the solid warm safety of his father's body, grabbing onto his father's arms with both hands. With a sigh, his father lay down on the bed, rearranging Ren's limbs so that two people, one big and one small, could both lay on that single bed without falling off.

The lightning and thunder returned, but it was so much safer now that his daddy was there. Ren sighed in relief. He fell asleep to the slow, deep beat of his father's heart.

* * *

Rei blinked as he wondered what had woken him up. In the faint light of the early morning, he saw a lump at the foot of the bed. A lump that shouldn't be there. Was that Ren?

He drew back his feet. "Naoe - "

His wife, already awake, placed her fingers up against her lips. Her eyes were set upon the sleeping figure of their son, huddled up against their legs, already moving to take over the room Rei's legs had made on the bed.

"Shouldn't we - ?" Rei asked.

She shook her head. "He just got back from Mihoshi. Let him stay for just a little longer," she whispered. 

Rei looked at her and then back at the soft, sleeping face of his child, his light-colored hair a smashed mess. He looked more like a baby here than a big boy of nearly sixteen.

Naoe reached down to grab Rei's hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears. "Isn't he beautiful?" 

His throat suddenly too tight to speak, Rei could only nod, agreeing.


End file.
